This is a succinct and straight forward post about the use of blogs in the classroom and the way they tend to bring to the fore a gap in teaching and learning that occurs between content delivery and assessment. While most of the teachers I’ve had, and colleagues I’ve encountered, do really work this ‘gap’ where active knowledge building occurs - employing blogs in a course makes this knowledge building collaborative and visible. In the process the tendency for quantitative assessment to undermine a qualitative and iterative ‘valueing’ and engagement becomes more obvious. At the same time there is more opportunity for teachers to effectively (and importantly affectively) engage and augment (add value to) this process of collaborative knowledge building. This is still not easy to fit within the transmission/assessment paradigm the still permeates the institution and susbsequently the attitudes of students. Perhaps the fact that the importance of this aspect of learning and mode of teaching becomes more visible and so more ‘valued’ itself through asynchronous and online modes of publishing and engagement is enough to shift that still operative paradigm a little.
Thanks to Mike for the Link
on Feb 21st, 2009 at 11:31 am
Well said, come to think of it I think this topic would make a really valuable addition to an unconference. Not sure if tackling it at the first one makes sense or not - we do have a lot to cover already I think. Then again it does falls squarely in the centre of building network literacies I think - so it’s quite appropriate too.
Which reminds me I still need to create the blog - I haven’t forgotten. What were your suggestions for names again? BTW, I’m exploring an idea about Finding Ethos that I’d like your thoughts on. I think it ties in quite closely to what we’re looking at with the unconference, not to mention the wider issue of open collaborative project in general.
Cheers,
Mike
on Mar 3rd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
i’m the first year media student in unsw. Now i’m trying to use the newsouthblogs system but i still confusing how the newsout blog link to my wordpress blog-_-. For people who seldom or never use rss may get confuse about this blog system in education.
regards
on Mar 3rd, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Hi mononocat2,
as long as you made it here there is nothing we can’t work out together. Go over to support.newsouthblogs.org/connect and follwo the instructions there - there is a secret password for adding you feed…but if your a user you’ll find it in the ’support’ link when you logged in to the dashboard of the newsouthblogs system.
you can also email me…….
m dot wall-smith at unsw dot edu dot au.
and i can help you through it.
thanks for your feedback..
on Mar 3rd, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Hi,
I’m Yoni also a first year student and my question is, is registering on newsouthblog’s the same as adding my feed? Because i’m quite confused and i have tried to work it out through the support page but i haven’t been asked for a password anywhere except for when i tried to join Brigid’d blog for the “time.. ” course.
Where will it ask me to add my feed?
Thanks,
Yoni
on Mar 3rd, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Hi Yoni…hmmm I’ll need to check that out if its not clear - but you’ll head to http://tags.newsouthblogs.org - you’ll see the ‘Add Feed’ box on the sidebar - put your feed url in here - it looks like this: http://myblog.wordpress.com/category/newsouthblogs/feed and the magical password that I emailed you (or you can find in the support tab - on the right hand side of the newsouth dashboard) let me know if I can clarify.